Chapter 371: A Smooth Journey
After leaving the bookshop, Bai Mo quietly made his way to a spot not far from his own shop.
He was met with a tidal wave of noise.
The shop wasn’t very large, but it was packed with people from all sorts of factions. There were even a number of Foundation Establishment Realm Cultivators, all acting cordially.
Occasionally, Qin Wen’s voice, laced with energy, could be heard cutting through the din.
Bai Mo listened for a moment and realized they were selling the Pills he had refined.
His staff, working quietly behind the scenes, had actually managed to build the shop up to this level.
It looked like many of Immortal Arrival City’s factions, big and small, were in attendance.
Bai Mo stood in a corner, extending his Divine Thought. He could sense many vigilant men from various Demon Hunting Teams keeping watch on their surroundings.
’It makes sense. There are so many grudges in the city; if those people ran into each other, things would surely get heated.’
’The Demon Hunting Team members had to be here to play peacemaker.’
His gaze shifted to his shop’s neighbor, Sun Qiao, who was pulling someone aside to hawk his Talismans.
Seeing a young man—who had been gawking at the commotion and eyeing the Pills with envy—take a Talisman, Sun Qiao’s sales pitch grew even more energetic.
"Let me tell you,"
"The owner of the Pill Shop next door is a great guy. I even have an arrangement with him for the Golden Spear Great Pill."
"He probably really did refine it, but he just changed the name to the Fire Marrow Pill..."
As the young man listened, an interested expression appeared on his face.
Bai Mo’s face darkened, and with a slight flicker of his will...
THWACK!
"Ouch!!"
Sun Qiao cried out abruptly, clutching his head and grimacing in pain.
"Who sneak-attacked me!?"
The young man beside him was baffled.
Just a moment ago, he had indeed sensed something flash by and hit the Talisman Shopkeeper’s head.
’But now... where was anything like that around here?’
Bai Mo turned and walked away. Back in the bookshop, he took out a cloth pouch.
"Sir, sorry to trouble you, but could you help me get this to my shop staff?"
The old Shopkeeper hadn’t heard Bai Mo return, so he knew he hadn’t gone back to his own shop.
"You’re not going back?"
"No."
Bai Mo nodded.
"I can see they put a lot of effort into organizing this. I don’t want to go and disrupt things."
Time was short, and Bai Mo also needed to find some high-quality three-animal sacrifices in the city.
Since such a grand event was happening at his shop, there was no need for him to interfere.
The old Shopkeeper took the pouch and told Bai Mo not to worry.
"I’ll wait for this Pill sale to finish, then I’ll deliver it to your shop. Don’t you worry."
After bidding the old Shopkeeper farewell, Bai Mo headed directly for an incense and candle shop in the city.
Immortal Arrival City had many famous incense and candle shops.
He’d never had the means to use them before, but now, with an important task at hand, he had to go and investigate them properly.
The Shopkeeper of the incense and candle shop was a very talkative old man.
"Back in the day, our trade was a highly respected one in the city. It’s hard to say how we fell into decline later on."
As the old man spoke, he reached out and fetched Bai Mo some white candles, as well as two strings of spirit money folded into the shape of ingots.
"What else do you need, young man?"
Bai Mo thought for a moment, then said:
"I don’t know the proper etiquette, but I’ve seen my fellow travelers preparing large quantities of high-quality three-animal sacrifices."
The old man said, "Ah, that’s for a grand sacrificial ritual."
"Whose ancestors are receiving such a grand honor?"
He clasped his hands behind his back and ambled slowly into the back of the shop.
"If you can afford to wait, young man, give me half a day. I can prepare a pig, an ox, and a sheep for you. Of course, the price will be a little steeper."
"That’s fine," Bai Mo said.
The old man nodded, then lifted a curtain and went into the back.
Bai Mo didn’t leave. He noticed a book on a glossy table to the side and began to flip through it.
The book seemed to have been placed there specifically for people who didn’t understand the intricacies of sacrificial rites, so they could read it and know what offerings to buy.
It was filled with important notes on sacrificial rites, as well as the proper specifications for offerings in different situations.
The level of detail surprised Bai Mo.
However, when it came to large-scale rituals for places like ruins or ancestral lands, especially those involving unusual people or objects, the book’s tone shifted and it offered no further guidance.
It merely stated that the rites and rules for such occasions were numerous and complex, and that the author, not being an expert, dared not write carelessly and mislead others.
The sheer seriousness of the tone was the mark of a true professional in the field.
By nightfall, the old man returned carrying a massive tray, upon which were arranged the heads of the three sacrificial animals.
"Well, young man, what do you think?"
Bai Mo grunted in affirmation. Seeing the state of the three animal heads, he knew they had been specially selected; their presentation was impeccable.
Bai Mo collected the items, paid with two Spirit Stones, and left.
Pleased by his decisiveness, the old man took the Spirit Stones and sat back down at the table to read his book.
By the time he returned to the paper boat, night had fallen, and many of the disciples were already resting.
Bai Mo finally saw Yuan Chu and hurried forward to greet him.
"Brother Yuan!"
Yuan Chu let out a breath of relief. "You’re a hard man to find."
"So, how was it? Did you go back to visit family?"
Bai Mo smiled.
"I was just looking around, and I prepared the three-animal sacrifices while I was in the city."
Yuan Chu nodded, then added:
"This journey is an unprecedentedly grand event for Divine Dao Mountain. It was proclaimed to the heavens and the earth from the sect gates before we even left."
"That’s why so many disciples have come for the occasion. They weren’t involved in the prison break incident."
Having nothing better to do, Bai Mo asked him to explain in more detail.
"It’s hard to explain clearly," Yuan Chu said.
"Basically, this journey has stirred up a great deal of karma."
"Some people with a great store of hidden merit will also, by a stroke of fortune, find their way onto these paper boats to get involved and claim a piece of the pie."
"This is no longer just Divine Dao Mountain’s own affair. It’s moving a lot of karmic threads, so much so that even the Jinyu branch doesn’t dare act recklessly..."
’No wonder so many of the disciples I’ve seen came here for the strangest of reasons.’
’The disciples of Divine Dao Mountain don’t try to drive them away or stop them, they just ignore them. Is that their way of showing they don’t want to get entangled in another’s karma?’
「The sky was not yet bright.」
A cool breeze swept by as the paper boat rose once more and drifted away.
In time, the fleet of boats soon left the territory of the Xuandao Sect.
Outside the Xuandao Sect’s domain, the suppressive constraints were gone, revealing a different landscape.
The fleet wasn’t so peaceful, either.
Core Formation Cultivators would often stop the fleet, some polite, others questioning them with cold glares.
It was always Shang Wunian who came forward to deal with it.
"When you people block our boats, do you not first look clearly at the karma they carry?"
Upon hearing this, most of them would grow solemn, and after sizing up the fleet for a moment, they would depart in alarm.
The few who lacked such insight couldn’t even withstand a single flick of Shang Wunian’s sleeve.
The wind from his sleeve would strike their faces, and they would topple over and fall without so much as a sound.
Yuan Chu hadn’t returned to his own boat, instead staying on Bai Mo’s.
"Our fleet carries some complicated karma, you know. It’s not just good deeds and good fortune; there’s plenty of bad business tied to it, too."
"If you interfere rashly, you’ll likely get entangled, and disaster will find its way to you."
In truth, Yuan Chu knew even more. The elders had privately warned them.
It was feared that on this journey, a great deal of karma would take the opportunity to come to fruition.
Anyone carrying a karmic debt had better be careful.
With Shang Wunian clearing the path, no other major incidents occurred.
This allowed Bai Mo to leisurely gaze down at the scenery below.
The various works of nature and man were a different sort of scenery from his home territory, and the culture and customs were even more distinct.
He saw peaceful and prosperous lands, as well as regions where minor sects waged endless external campaigns.
There were even places that had been plundered until their resources were depleted, utterly devoid of the vital energy needed for cultivation.
’With such varied cultivation atmospheres,’ he thought, ’the Cultivators in each place must have very different ways of life.’